Essentially a prime-time soap, Bomb Girls is a well-plotted, smartly written soap that doesn't shy away from, shocking, even gruesome, plot turns in showing the dangers of working in a bomb-making factory.

The strained '40s-speak starts to recede in the third episode (four were sent to critics), and, not coincidentally, the performances begin to improve--what looked like community theater acting in the pilot suddenly seems more natural.